I've been reading through the forum and its various very helpful topics for quite a while now.... and would like, firstly, to thank you all for your very informative posts and, secondly, to thank the moderators who helped me to register after many unsuccessful attempts (you might all live to regret my subscription, mind you)

Ok -- I'll try to be brief. I'm English, hubby's a Frog. We live in France. At long last the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel of working life is getting brighter and brighter and hubby will retire in October and as from 1st November we will be moving to Andalucia for good.

What we're planning on doing at first is renting an appartment in the Torrox area for a few months in order to take our time to find a place we want to rent definitively afterwards.

I've written to three leading estate agents in the area that I found on the web and who advertise long-term/winter rentals -- one wrote back to say they had nothing to offer (inspite of their website stating differently!!!!) and, three weeks later, I'm still waiting for replies from the other two I've also contacted the *owners* of two different appartments on one of the *rent directly* sort of sites (I don't want to put any names because I don't want to break the rules in my first post ) but the automated confirmation of receipt reply shows that the so-called private owner is in fact yet another estate agent who also has not had the decency to reply to my demand for further info.

I must admit I'm getting more than a little distressed/fed up with this lack of communication so thought I'd ask a couple of questions on here, hoping someone will be kind enough to answer

1. Are the agencies all closed at the moment?

2. Is it because I asked for a three-month contract that I'm being totally ignored -- should I have asked for a six-month rental?

3. Why do they advertise so many appartments to rent if, in fact, they're not available for those long-term offers?

4. Do you think three months is long enough to find a nice (unfurnished if possible) appartment to rent afterwards.

I'm wondering if I'm not going to have to book a place via a holiday website for, say, a month and pay the excessive holiday price instead of the much more reasonably priced monthly fees advertised for long-term rentals of the same properties.

I do hope this all makes sense and that my English isn't too rusty -- it's not often I get to speak it these days

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any answers/advice..... and have a nice day everybody

Good Morning Soleil, Welcome to the Forum.. Letting agents are notorious at not replying and advertised properties are usually long gone.

I would also guess that you would be better to ask for a 6 month rental, maybe it will help.!Can I suggest that you contact selling agents with a selection of properties to view ( to buy) and then ask them if they could 'fix you up' with a temporary let while you complete the transaction and carry out any improvements.Some sellers may even agree to renting to you with a view to 'try before you buy', obviously you would have to complete an agreement, I have done this twice over the years..successfully.Anyway may I wish you every success with your plans..

@ Gordon -- thanks for the advice about the selling agents -- I'll keep it in mind if I don't have any luck with the rest. The sites I contacted (some run by English people from what I could gather) had both rentals and sales and some very good (obviously invented lol) reviews about how very helpful they were at helping people find property they had wanted to rent (ie not only buy). I swear I'm no longer naïve but I must admit I hadn't expected such rudeness and will make sure I won't use them once we're in the area